Is BlackBerry announcing the Z30 Aristo tomorrow?

It's been a while since we heard anything about the BlackBerry Z30, or the Aristo, the big-screened BB handset that's supposedly the Canadian firm's next flagship.

Well the latest is it could be launching as soon as next week – in Asia at least – with BlackBerry reportedly about to announce the 5in Z30 at a trio of launch events in France, Malaysia and India tomorrow.

The Z30, which we previously knew as the BlackBerry A10, is set to come with a 5in Super AMOLED display running at 1280 x 768, a dual-core 1.7GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, BlackBerry 10.2 and a 2880mAh battery.

Quite the package, in other words, and easily BlackBerry's biggest-screened handset to date. Since the first leaks emerged earlier this year we were told to expect a launch in time for the holiday season, but of late BlackBerry-related news has centred more on the company's troubles rather than the Z30's progress.

However, Pocket-lint says its sources have confirmed that the Z30 will be unveiled tomorrow, specifically at the Malaysia event, but likely at the France and India events too.

What that means in terms of a launch timetable for other territories remains to be seen - Pocket-lint reckons a US launch could come 2-3 weeks later, though that doesn't tell us anything about when we'll see it here in the UK. Still, if the rumours are correct we'll find out more as soon as tomorrow.

Update: elsewhere on the mobile web, incidentally, the rumour is that it's BBM for Android and iOS about to be announced. Nigeria-based TechSuplex claims to have been informed by an insider at network MTN that they've been told to expect a spike in customer queries when BBM on Samsung's Galaxy devices is enabled on the 19th (Thursday).

That follows earlier rumours that BBM would initially be a Samsung exclusive, potentially only in Africa, for three months before rolling out to the wider Android community.